Day 445
by LemonStar
Summary: ..Daryl/Beth.. From "Fifty Four Days". Anna thought that over for a moment, with a faintly furrowed brow. They were lucky. She knew that much. They had food and a garden and Lucky the goat with her milk and Beth knew all of the berries, bark, greens and flowers in the woods that were safe to eat and they had Daryl, who was able to hunt them rabbits and deer.


**A one-shot I've been working on for the past few days and I really love this world. I especially love Beth in this world.**

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…

The bird wasn't singing. It was calling out to something. Cawing. Maybe alerting the others like him that they were near. She stood at the bottom of the steps that led up into the church and looked up to the bird in the tree. It was white-breasted with dark grey feathers and its bill was a bit longer than she usually saw on birds. It continued cawing and she stood there, knowing she should be paying attention to everything around her and not getting distracted by a single bird up in a tree, but she couldn't tear her eyes from it.

"What is that?" She asked, pointing towards it, and then looking to the man at her side.

Spencer tilted his head up, following her finger, and once he saw, he shook his head and his eyes fell forward again, scanning the trees around them, on the lookout; like she should have been. "I have no idea. You know you need to ask Daryl that kind of stuff."

"I like it," she commented as the bird's call changed then. _Kri-kri-kri-kri_ , it sang, and it made Anna smile a little.

"It all clear?" Spencer asked and Anna finally looked away from the bird to see Daryl and Rosita stepping out of the church, a nylon knapsack already in Daryl's hand.

"Yeah," Rosita nodded. "And Beth was right. They've got a kitchen."

"Daryl," Anna said his name, her eyes already going back to the tree branch, the bird still there, singing its song. "What kind of bird is that?"

Daryl looked for not even a few seconds before answering. "White-breasted Nuthatch."

"You sure?" She asked, making Daryl smirk.

"Why you ask me for an answer if you don't trust me on my answer?" He questioned her then swung the knapsack into her arms. "Here. Make yourself useful."

The little girl smiled as she hugged the sleeping bag tight to her chest.

"Come on. Stay close." He put a gentle hand on her shoulder and led her up the steps, following behind Rosita and Spencer as they entered the small church.

Anna saw the two walkers that Daryl and Rosita had taken care of, lying on the floor near the back pew. She stayed close at Daryl's heels as he walked up the main aisle towards the large cross hanging from the ceiling. She looked at it as she passed, following Daryl past the altar. She remembered going to church with her mom, dad and baby sister. Her mom would bring coloring books and crayons and Anna would sit on the floor, using the pew seat as a table as she spent the entire service coloring, being quiet.

There was a door behind the altar that led to the back of the church and Anna didn't think of her parents or baby sister anymore as she followed Daryl through it. She was only six but she knew. She knew better than most kids her age; if there even were kids her age anymore, having spent so many days locked in a maintenance closet in a gas station, drinking warm cans of Mountain Dew she had found on the floor from a broken soda machine and snack bags of stale pretzels that remained on dusty shelves. Her parents were dead and they weren't coming back. Everyone she knew was dead and she was all alone butshe had a new family now.

There was Daryl and Beth, Rosita, Spencer and Aaron. And they were good people and they were safe and strong and Anna couldn't even really remember her parents' faces anymore. She had five new parents. Five people who never let her out of their sight; five people who made her feel loved.

There were four doors in the back of the church – three of them open to show the room on the other side. The fourth door was closed and labeled with a bathroom sign. Daryl looked to the three open doors and pointed Spencer towards what looked to be a little classroom – probably where Sunday School had been held, he pointed Rosita towards what looked to be the pastor's office and he, himself, went into the kitchen. Anna only hesitated for a second before she quickly followed after Daryl.

He was beginning to open cabinets and finding a few cans, he grabbed them and set them down on the counter.

"How come they got a kitchen?" Anna asked, watching him, still hugging the sleeping bag. She wondered why a sleeping bag had been inside of a church.

"Prob'ly got volunteers makin' food for poor people who used to live 'round here," Daryl said, pulling down a couple of bags of flour that had been stored in Ziploc bags. Beth went through tons of flour in her cooking and for some reason, it was something that a lot of people didn't think of getting for themselves when they were scavenging.

"Oh," Anna said and then went to the lower cabinets, wanting to help. She began opening them, peeking inside. "Daryl," she then said, pulling on his shirt. "Look."

Daryl instantly lowered his eyes to watch as Anna reached onto the shelf and pulled out a little red potato – one potato was all that was left, as if it had fallen from a sack and had sat there for who knew how long, forgotten – and it was sprouting all over. She held it up for him to see and Daryl broke into an actual smile when he did. Daryl didn't smile that much. If he did, it was little and gone just as quickly as it appeared but sometimes, he let out a full, actual smile and it always made the others smile, too, because if Daryl was smiling, they knew there was a good reason for it.

Daryl carefully took the potato from her hand and with his other, he ruffled her hair.

"This is a hell of a find, Anna," he told her, slipping the potato carefully into the pack on his back, and she smiled, feeling herself standing a little taller.

They found a couple more cans and hearing footsteps behind them, Daryl turned, seeing that it was Spencer. Without a word, he handed Anna something he had found. She gasped and dropped the sleeping bag to the floor, taking the coloring books.

"Big box of crayons in my bag, too, and got some of the books that was in there. Also…" from behind his back, he whipped out a container to show them and for the second time that day, Daryl smiled and Anna gasped again.

Nesquik chocolate milk powder mix.

Spencer grinned. "So, what'd you find?"

"A potato!" Anna exclaimed happily.

Daryl set his pack on the counter and began loading the cans. He then held out a hand and Anna handed him the coloring books so he could pack those away, too, as she picked the sleeping bag back up. Rosita came in then, a smile on her face and a bottle of red wine in her hand. She shook it back and forth and Daryl smirked and Spencer threw an arm around Rosita's shoulders and smacked a kiss on her temple and she laughed.

"You find the other stuff in there?" Daryl asked, slinging his pack back on.

"Yep. In the pastor's supply closet," Rosita nodded, unable to stop from beaming.

"A'right," Daryl said, looking at the three of them. "We ready to head home?"

All of them nodded their heads immediately. The run had gone well enough but it was time to go home. None of them liked to be away from home for too long and always made sure that the runs they went on – when they went on runs, which they actually didn't do that often anymore – would never take them too far from home.

As Rosita and Spencer left the kitchen, Daryl looked down to Anna.

"Where's your knife?" He asked her.

Anna shifted the sleeping bag into the crook of one arm, hugging it tightly, as she pulled her little knife from the sheath hanging from her jean's belt loop.

"What do I tell you?" Daryl then asked.

"Don't go outside if it's not in my hand," she recited one of her most constant lessons.

"'s right," he gave his head a nod. "And now that you got it in your hand, what can you do?" He asked.

"Protect myself," she stated and he gave his head another nod.

"A'right. Now, you're ready to go," Daryl said and she smiled up at him and looking down at her, she could see his lips twitching upwards a little in response.

Sometimes, Daryl wasn't in a good mood and everyone knew it. He was always frowning but sometimes, a little smile or smirk would break through, especially around Beth. But when he was in a bad mood, the scowl was permanent and they could almost see the dark cloud that surrounded him as they all kept their distance from him for however long the mood lasted.

But no matter how dark his mood was in, everyone still trusted Daryl and they knew that he would do anything to keep them safe. He may have been gruff and rough around the edges but they knew he cared for them. And no matter how fierce his frown was, Anna never shrank back as he passed because even when he was frowning, he would always put himself in front of her to protect her.

But today seemed to be a good day. They had been able to find things tucked away in this old little church hidden away in the middle of nowhere and forgotten by the rest of the world and Anna began walking out of the kitchen but she stopped when she noticed that Daryl wasn't following after her. Instead, he was looking around the small kitchen as if thinking of something or looking for something.

He then turned back to the counter and taking off his pack, he unloaded four of the cans of what he had found and left them there. When he turned back towards her, she was looking at him, confusion clear on her face.

"Why are you doing that?" She asked him.

Daryl shrugged, returning the pack to his back. "We got plenty of food for ourselves. No reason to take all the cans when not everyone's been as lucky as us."

Anna thought that over for a moment, with a faintly furrowed brow. They _were_ lucky. She knew that much. They had food and a garden and Lucky the goat with her milk and Beth knew all of the berries, bark, greens and flowers in the woods that were safe to eat and they had Daryl, who was able to hunt them rabbits and deer.

They also had plenty of blankets and a fire for when it got cold.

She didn't think of it for another second. She went to the counter and standing on her toes, next to the cans, she left the rolled up sleeping bag. Just in case someone needed it more than them.

…

At first, they thought Anna would be too young. After all, she was just six, going on seven, and she should stay at home. But eventually, they knew that they couldn't keep her stupid from the ways of the world – especially with what she had already seen and been through. They couldn't hide her from it. They could only make her stronger.

So when they went on a run, four went and two stayed behind back home. They pulled names to see who went and all six names were put in to be drawn.

Beth and Aaron were at home that day and when the Buick came up the cul-de-sac, Aaron was already out in the driveway, opening the gate for them to drive through, and by the time the car was pulled into the garage up next to the chicken coop Daryl had built, Beth was there, too, counting them through the windows and smiling with relief.

"Beth!" Anna exclaimed. "I found a potato!"

Beth's smile was instant. "Did you really?"

"And I found chocolate milk powder," Spencer grinned and Beth laughed.

Beth then looked to Rosita, who simply nodded and smiled, and Beth seemed to exhale a sigh of relief before her smile returned to her face and remained there.

The others went into the house then, to unload everything they had gotten, Aaron following to help and Anna excitedly telling him all about the potato and coloring books, and after a moment, it was just Daryl and Beth in the garage. She had cut her hair recently; well, Rosita had technically cut it. Nothing too drastic. Just a few inches that brought it a little bit past her shoulders. Still long enough to sweep up into a ponytail and keep off her neck. It had been a humid summer so far and every bit helped.

Beth came to stand in front of him and she looked him over more closely now that they were alone. She saw dried blood on his tee-shirt that hadn't been there when he left earlier that morning but Daryl just shook his head, reading her mind.

"Ain't mine," he told her in a low voice even though she had already figured that out for herself. She looked at the stain for another second and then lifted her eyes to him. "How'd your morning go?" He asked her before she could ask him how it had went for him. He'd rather hear about hers anyway.

She had talked with him about it last week, when they had gone to the antiques store and it had been an idea that had settled in her head. The store was almost all the way cleared out now by them but there were still a few things to grab and Beth had found what she needed there that gave her idea the legs she needed to carry it through. When she had told the others at dinner that night, there had been nothing but encouragement and excitement. They had all learned that there was little Beth wasn't able to do when it came to particular things like this.

They all helped with the chores. Patrolling the fences, laundry, the outhouse, taking care of the garden because not only did they have Lucky, the goat, but they actually had chickens now. Actual chickens that had been found on a farm nearly a day away from here and they shouldn't have still been alive but they were, eating the bags of corn that had been spilled over the barn floor and rotten eggs they had laid everywhere.

There had been a man – the farmer and the owner of the chickens – not bit but dying anyway. He had put up a good, long fight – as good of one as he could – but he couldn't do it anymore. He had looked at Beth and with a tired smile, had told her that he was just tired of it all by now.

Beth being Beth had asked the farmer to come back home with them and Spencer and Aaron helped the old man into the truck as Beth and Daryl loaded the back bed with crates of the chickens, sacks of the dried corn and jugs of water. And back home, Aaron volunteered his bed and they gave him fresh clothes to wear and the farmer laid there for two days, smiling at the softness of the mattress beneath him and the safety of the walls surrounding him and Beth fed him some summer broth that she made with forest greens and mushrooms and a small dash of cinnamon, one of her favorite things to cook with. Anna was learning how to read and she practiced by sitting on the floor next to the bed, reading to the farmer from her books, a story about an island of wild things and another about a bull who just loved to sit and be with the flowers.

When the farmer passed away peacefully in his sleep – which was more than most people could ask for nowadays and Beth was quiet, thinking of her own daddy – Daryl slowly put a knife through his head and they buried him in the woods and marked the spot with a cross tied with two sticks.

They all did everything they could to keep the house safe but it was really Beth who worked to make their house more than that. She worked to make it an actual home.

And if she wasn't in the garden or in the woods, she was in the kitchen. She was determined to make them food where they could eat and have full stomachs. She rationed and planned and experimented with the things they had. She read her flower and plant book from cover to cover more than five times and that book – and Beth – was what was keeping them alive; giving them something actually resembling a life.

"I think it went okay. I let it set and then it said to store it someplace cold so I had to improvise with that one," Beth said. "I put it down in the basement. It's the coolest place I could think of. I had everything I needed to make it and the recipe was actually so simple. I don't know though…"

Daryl reached a hand out and rested it lightly on her hip. "It's gonna be great," he said and then leaned in, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead, and he was going to pull away but then Beth exhaled a soft breath and leaned into him, pressing her head further against his lips, and Daryl rested them there, his eyes drifting closed for a moment.

It sometimes used to make him nervous. The amount of quiet moments they had here.

They still killed walkers every day and it made him wonder how many walkers were still out in the world. But this house was so randomly built, part of a new subdivision of houses built in the middle of nowhere and which the developer had had such high hopes for before the world went and ended before anything else could be built. People didn't come around here unless it was like he and Beth had found it. By stumbling through the woods and seeing a house with a built-up fence surrounding it and a moat dug into the ground around that.

Daryl didn't take chances. He hid it from Beth – though he knew she knew what he did – and from Anna, the girl having seen a lot of this world already but not needing to see that yet – and he would do anything he had to do to protect this house and these people. His and Beth's new family.

He had a count going on in his head and the count was now up to seven. Seven different people. And he wondered how many people were still left out in the world.

"Everythin' okay?" Daryl asked as he finally pulled his lips away from her forehead.

Beth nodded and exhaled another soft breath. "I'm just always a nervous wreck when you go out there without me," she confessed in a quiet voice.

"Yeah, I know," he said and he did.

Because he felt the same way when he went out on a run or she did and the other stayed home. He worried though he knew that Beth could handle herself if anything did happen and after all of this time, after nearly five hundred days together, he didn't like being apart from her. Nearly five hundred days. He couldn't really remember the time before; the time before when he didn't have Beth at his side, as his partner and his wife.

He didn't think of their old family anymore except for the occasional quick thought but he knew there really wasn't a point to thinking of them. They hadn't seen them in so long and he and Beth weren't looking to leave here ever to go and look for them. They didn't even know if any of them were still alive and he didn't even know where they would begin to look and why leave this place, their home, to go a wild-goose chase?

When it came to family, he thought of Merle and Hershel more than any of the others. Even thoughts of Rick and Lil' Asskicker faded away. He would look at Anna sometimes and imagine that this is how Judith was; or would be. Wherever she was. Anna wasn't even seven yet and she was already as tough as they came. Few things truly scared her. She was still a little kid, daydreaming about birds and sometimes lying in the grass and watching the clouds or reading her storybooks and coloring pictures but she carried a knife with her and Daryl was giving her self-defense lessons – which for a kid her size, mainly consisted of kicking an attacker – man or woman – right in the crotch.

He thought of how Merle would be in a place like this. Merle had never been one to settle down and make a home for himself but maybe here, he'd be able to do that. It was a new world, after all. And he thought of Hershel and what the man would think of the ring he had put on Beth's finger, making her his wife and him her husband. He liked to imagine that maybe, Hershel would be alright with it.

But as for the others… it didn't really matter whether he thought about them or not. It was clear to him that they hadn't really spent time, thinking about him and Beth.

And they had all moved on.

"Gotcha somethin'," Daryl said, pulling himself from his thoughts, and he slipped his backpack off, setting it down on the hood of the car. He looked over the cans he had taken and when he pulled it out, Beth let out a happy laugh. And he knew she remembered from when she had been sick and he had been so desperate to find her anything and he smiled a little because she remembered.

"I've been craving this lately," she joked as she hugged the cream of celery soup can to her chest and with a happy smile, she kissed him on the lips. "Thank you."

"'m sure you can make something great with it," he said and Beth nodded eagerly.

"I wonder what flowers go with celery," she said and with one more quick kiss, she turned and hurried from the garage, heading into the house to consult her book.

…

It had been a hunch lately. She knew that many churches baked their own breads. The one she and her family used to go to baked their own anyway for their Sunday services and she couldn't imagine that people would be looking for something like that so the chances were, it would still be there somewhere. When she had asked Rosita to look, Rosita just nodded and promised she'd look for that before anything else. If she had wondered why the hell Beth wanted it, she didn't ask. They were used to Beth asking for all sorts of things they didn't really understand until she showed them what she would possibly be able to do with it.

And Rosita just hadn't brought her back one pack – which is all Beth had been hoping for. But apparently the little church they had gone it, they had stocked their supplies and Rosita had returned with an entire _box_ filled with the little packets. Beth could now only hope that this worked.

Adding her first packet of yeast to the flour and pinch of salt in a bowl, she poured in the warm water. She took more flour and sprinkled it on the counter and then taking the sticky mess from the bowl, she plopped it down onto the counter. And once she pulled off her wedding ring and carefully set it aside, she began kneading. Her book said to do it for eight to ten minutes, continuously adding sprinkles of flour as she did so.

There was no reason why this wouldn't work. People since _biblical_ times had been making bread and if she could make her family bread, it would be something so incredible, she could already feel little tingles of excitement at just the idea.

Anna sat across from her on the other side of the counter on one of the stools, coloring a picture in one of the books Spencer had found for her that day. Beth kneaded and looked at what she was coloring. It was a religious coloring book and she recognized the scene immediately. She remembered coloring a similar picture when she had been in Sunday School another lifetime ago. A picture of a large rock rolled away from a tomb and a woman running to go tell someone. She wondered if Anna knew the story but telling her of how Jesus rose from the dead, Beth had a feeling Anna wouldn't see anything special about that. Not these days.

The record player was cranked to full power and it sat on the kitchen table, playing a Bach record that early afternoon. Hair came loose from her ponytail as she kneaded and she blew away at the annoying strands, trying to get them from her face, and Anna was humming along to the song playing. The back door was open to try and catch an imaginary breeze blowing in the hot summer day and Beth lifted her head, looking out to the backdoor. Aaron was in the garden, pulling at the weeds that had sprouted since the weeds they had pulled just the day before.

She couldn't see Daryl and Rosita but she knew they were probably outside the fences, killing the walkers that had fallen into the moats. They didn't clear them out as often anymore. Daryl was worried that with six people, plus a goat, plus chickens, living within the fence, all of their warm living scents would attract more walkers like it had at the prison. Leaving the walkers rotting around them for a while hopefully masked them.

She heard steps coming up the wooden basement stairs and she turned her head to see that it was Spencer, hopping up the last step into the kitchen.

"Okay. I know I probably shouldn't have but I snuck a little taste," he informed her.

Beth stopped kneading. "And?"

Spencer grinned. "Best damn goat cheese I've ever tasted," he informed her and she believed that Spencer had probably had plenty of goat cheese before. He and his family had probably even vacationed in France a few times in his life. "I like the taste of whatever herb you put into it."

"Dill. Just a little bit though. Did I put enough in, do you think?" She asked.

Spencer nodded. "It's perfect. Honestly, Beth," he assured. "Fresh bread and goat cheese," he then said with a slight shake of his head. "My mom talked about how important it was to keep the world moving forward even after this all happened."

Beth began kneading once more but she looked to him as he sat down on the stool next to Anna and the girl promptly handed him a green crayon. They began coloring the picture together. None of them ever talked about their past. It was some sort of unspoken agreement between them all. Everything that had come before, it really didn't matter anymore. Dwelling on the past never helped anyone so she had never heard Spencer talk about his mom but Beth admitted she was a little curious.

"Tried to get a community going. It worked for a while but… it was too big and too many people and just… it was a pipe dream," Spencer said with a shake of his head. He lifted his eyes to Beth and gave her a smile. "She would have admired the shit out of you and everything you've been able to do here."

And Beth found herself smiling at that.

Just how Spencer used to be when they first met – clean-cut and a little sheltered – Beth had a feeling that Spencer's mom had been something of an impressive woman and her thinking that of Beth would be a compliment.

"Language," she said, her eyes cutting to Anna before back to him, and Spencer grinned.

Finished with the kneading, Beth sprinkled it with more flour and then carefully, she returned it to the bowl and covered it with a dishtowel. She moved it into the warm sun and would wait an hour for it to rise.

In the meantime, she had laundry hanging on the line outside that had to be brought in.

Once everything was folded, she began dispersing it in the proper rooms. Downstairs in the basement where Spencer and Rosita slept, she set the laundry basket down and went to the bowl with the goat cheese she had tried to make that morning, setting there in the slightly cooler room until the bread was done. She swiped at a little amount with the tip of her finger from the side of the bowl and brought it to her mouth.

She smiled a little.

 _Well, I'll be_ , she thought to herself.

Upstairs back in the kitchen, she found a baking sheet and carried the now risen sticky mess to the fire in the family room. It was way too hot to be burning a fire but she needed it for cooking. With no working oven, Daryl had taken one of the wire racks from the oven and had made a few adjustments to the fireplace, nailing it above the flames, making her a shelf, and Beth slid the metal tray onto the rack now.

"I hope this works," she then said to herself and no one else in particular.

"It will," Spencer and Anna said at the same time, not looking up from the coloring book.

Beth smiled a little and stood up then. "Spencer, can you do me a favor?"

"Name it," he said, sliding off the stool.

Beth went back into the kitchen, to the pantry, where all of their jars and containers of food and spices were kept. She took one of the containers of dried corn kernels and scooped out two cups, putting it into a bowl and handing it to Spencer.

"Can you grind that down for me? I think it's time we have corn cakes for breakfast tomorrow," she said.

"Hell, yeah," Spencer said, taking the bowl, and heading into the living room where they kept the corn sheller and grinder.

They had so much corn now, getting bags of it from Jack, the farmer. The instant they had found him in the barn with his chickens and his corn and he said his name, she had nearly gasped. Jack. And she instantly was bombarded with memories of hers and Daryl's little red fox; the fox she missed every single day and who was buried beneath the cherry tree in their backyard. She had looked at Jack the farmer and could hear his slightly labored breathing and when he had said he was so tired, she knew that the old man was dying. And she thought of the violent way their Jack had died and how they hadn't been able to help him and she looked to this man and it was like she getting a re-do. Daryl didn't give an argument when Beth asked Jack, the farmer, to come home with them where he could pass away, peacefully in one of their beds.

Beth went and took her basket from the pantry where she always kept it. She turned back to Anna with a smile. "Want to help me pick some lavender for the corn cakes?

"Yes!" Anna dropped her crayon and jumped down from her stool, Beth laughing as the girl ran out the back door and Beth followed after her.

They grew flowers in the front yard but they grew lavender everywhere around the house. It not only helped ward off mosquitoes but Beth also used it in her cooking and a lot of her medicines used lavender as well.

"Beth," Aaron called her over from the garden before she could join Anna, who had gone to a patch of lavender growing alongside the house. He came to join her, wiping his arm across his forehead, wiping the sweat away. "Rabbit tracks around the carrots again," he informed her.

"Again?" And Beth couldn't help but sigh heavily. She missed Jack every single day and when they had issues with their garden and wildlife, she _really_ missed him. "Alright. Just… you let Daryl know and I'll look for something in one of my books that might help," she said even though she hadn't been able to find anything in her books yet.

"You got it," Aaron said with a nod and went off to go and find Daryl.

Beth stood for a moment, staring at the large garden, before sighing again and turning to go meet up with Anna. No matter how much she was able to accomplish in a day, when a single thing went wrong, she couldn't help but feel like a complete failure; like she was back at the farm with everyone else and she was nothing more than a burden who couldn't do much of anything at all.

…

It took a few hours but the bread cooked with a crunchy crust and soft white inside and they sat outside in a circle on the grass, trying so desperately to feel a breeze as they ate hunks of bread slathered with goat cheese, Anna feeding some bits to Lucky, and everyone except Anna had a glass of red wine. And they all ate so much, by the time the loaf of bread was all gone and just a little bit of the cheese remained, their stomachs all hurt. None could remember the last time that happened.

Aaron laid flat on his back, his fingers crossed over his stomach, drifting in and out in a light sleep, and Anna sat beside him, plucking dandelions from the grass and weaving a crown for the man to wear. Rosita took the bowl in her lap and took it upon herself to finish the rest of the cheese, continuously moaning with each bite she took.

"Have you ever tasted anything better?" She kept asking no one in particular.

"We might be the only people left in the world who are eating cheese and bread," Spencer grinned lazily as if he was intoxicated and then finding a few lingering crumbs on his tee-shirt, he carefully wet his finger and gathered them up into his mouth.

Beth smiled and looked to Daryl, who sat next to her, and he was staring at her. She wondered how long he had been staring at her because normally, she was able to feel his eyes on her whenever he let them linger.

"What?" She smiled, almost laughing, feeling her cheeks blush.

Daryl shook his head and didn't say anything but he kept looking at her. He leaned in then and she closed her eyes and smiled faintly as he brushed his lips along her jaw.

"You're amazin'," he whispered in her ear and she felt her stomach flip – just like it did any other time he said something like that; as if he never said anything like that to her.

One of his favorite things to say to her – and he said it at least once every few days – was that he had no idea what he would do without her.

"Beth, can you read something tonight?" Anna asked and she leaned over, placing the crown of dandelions on Aaron's head as best as she could and he smiled at her, sitting up a little so it could rest better.

" _Little House on the Prairie!"_ Rosita immediately requested the book that Spencer had found in the Sunday School classroom earlier that day.

"I'll get it," Daryl volunteered and he returned a moment later, handing Beth the hardcover book and she smiled her thanks up to him.

He sat down again but this time, he sat behind Beth, his legs spread out on either side of her, and Beth looked over her shoulder, smiling at him, as she scoot back, reclining her back against his chest. They got themselves comfortable and Beth opened the book to the first page of the first chapter. She looked at them all before she began reading. They sat in their circle, relaxing and lounging, and recovering from a filling dinner. She smiled to herself. It was as if she and her family had gone on a picnic in the park that evening and it was so easy to imagine because she couldn't even hear a walker snarling nearby.

She felt Daryl's strong warm body behind her and she nestled in a bit closer to him, as close to him as she could be; one of his arms around her middle.

"A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. They drove away and left it lonely and empty in the clearing among the big trees, and they never saw that little house again. They were going to the Indian country."

She read until the sun was almost completely dipped beneath the western line and she was squinting too much to see the words and they all stood up, heading inside where they would draw names to see who would be on watch first that night.

Beth couldn't help but be glad that Spencer's name was pulled first and after saying goodnight and Rosita telling Anna they had to get her ready for bed, guiding the girl down the hall to the little bedroom that had initially been the home's office, Beth looked to Daryl and Daryl looked to Beth, both exchanging small smiles. And then, taking her hand in his, lacing their fingers together, Daryl walked Beth to their bedroom and closed the door behind them with a quiet click.

…

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 **Thank you very much for reading and please review!  
**


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